


Ghost Stories

by ten-ten31 (KitKaos)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American James Potter, F/M, Gen, James Potter Lives, Memory Alteration, good intentions wip fest, no beta - we die like jily
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitKaos/pseuds/ten-ten31
Summary: Through a chain of unfortunate events, American Jim Potter finds himself on a prolonged stay in the English countryside, in a lovely little cottage - and it is said to be haunted by a beautiful ghost lady.(This story will most likely never be finished but I still wanted to share it as part of the Good Intentions WIP fest on Tumblr. Enjoy!)
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Kudos: 2
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ( Find out about the Good Intentions WIP fest here: https://goodintentionswipfest.tumblr.com/ )

It all started with a phone call: “We’re truly sorry to inform you that your research grant has not been renewed.” There were, of course, a lot more words from the poor assistant bearing the bad news. Apologetic words. Nice words about his research, and how much they would love to keep him with them. Attempts at telling him how they were positive that there lay a golden future ahead of Mister Potter even without the money to finance any of his oh-so-vital-but-not-vital-enough-to-spend-money-on-it research.

Riiiight…

At some point, he set his phone to speaker and started doing the dishes that had been piling up over the last few days. Other people threw tantrums; he went on a cleaning spree around the apartment he soon wouldn’t be able to afford anymore.

It was a pity, really. Mostly for his research, of course. But also for his apartment. He had only bought his bright red IKEA kitchen this last spring. He could put it into storage if he didn’t find a place to move it to, he knew. But he also knew that especially IKEA never looked just as good the second time around. And with sorely needed grant money missing from his bank account, he would have to rely on yard sales and thrift-store finds for most of the other furniture.

If he found a cheaper place in a city like New York, New York, that wasn’t several hours’ commute away and wasn’t infested with rats and cockroaches. Which was a very significant IF. A sigh escaped his lips and he let the plate he had just been scrubbing sink back into the soapy water of the sink.

What was he supposed to do? Columbia University was the one place his Aunt Minnie had always hoped for him to go. It had been such a big dream of hers to see her beloved nephew studying there – so much so that he himself didn’t know if his desire to be here was his own, or if it was his desire to please her. Columbia was great, of course it was. It was Columbia, after all – Ivy League, best in the country, anything he could have hoped for. Leaving felt like giving up, like losing to the Big Apple. And, most of all, it felt like disappointing his Aunt Minnie…

Pulling the plastic gloves off his hands, he went over to where he had left his phone and picked it up. Maybe he could apply for other kinds of scholarships or grants? But no, he had looked into that several times in the past already.

Maybe it was time to pick up his feet and find a real job, with a real company. But who out there on the free market would hire a twenty-something philosophy research fellow?

Maybe he should move to a completely different town altogether? Try to continue his research at another university? But which one? A quick Google search gave him a list of the top universities worldwide in his field. Rutgers, Oxford, Notre Dame, Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, St. Andrews, King’s College London, Edinburgh, Bristol,…

There were a lot of British universities in there. Maybe he should try his luck there? His chances were probably as good as any over here in the States. And he had always loved anything UK. He loved British TV and British humour. Heck, he had even had a British girlfriend not that long ago – Nancy Mulligan, red-haired and fair-skinned, from… was it Belfast or Bristol?

But maybe fate was trying to tell him something here…

A crash and a clatter from the other room ripped him from his musings – it had sounded like something breaking. As he went to look what could have happened, he found his favourite Columbia U mug that had held his pencils and pens in pieces on the floor. What the…? Next to it lay the Dalek figurine he had gotten for his birthday, saved by the end of the long scarf hanging down his desk.

Fate was most definitely trying to tell him something here…

He put the Dalek back on the desk, then the pens and pencils strewn all over the floor, then went to clean up the broken mug. Last, he picked up the end of the scarf that was on the floor to dust off any smaller porcelain pieces that might still be clinging to it.

In a very spontaneous move, he freed the rest of the scarf from his desk, and started wrapping it around his neck. Once. Twice. A smile spread on his face – the first since the phone call. This. This felt… right in a not quite tangible way.

A resolve slowly but unrelentingly took shape in his mind while he went to pick up his phone and dial his Aunt Minnie’s number.

“Jim, is that you?” came the familiar voice, always sounding a little weary and defeated to his ears, but definitely lighting up once she knew it was him.

And he always made his voice sound extra cheerful just for her. She was his only living relative, had single-handedly raised him and he loved her for it. “Yeah, it’s me, Aunt Minnie. How’s the hip? Better I hope? Listen… I… I wanted to ask you about Columbia.”

“Yes, what about it, dear?”

“Weeeeeeell… You see, I just got a call that they’re not renewing my grant and why don’t I look for another university that’ll have me how ‘bout in the UK I always wanted to go.” He rattled off what he had wanted to tell her, probably in hopes of her not catching every word and therefore not berating him for his wild dreams of going to Europe of all places. Who would look after her? Would she be okay? Was it really such a good idea to look into this option?

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then: “Why would you want to go to the UK, of all places? You will probably need a visa and a work permit. Life is run differently over there, you do know that?” It was soft prodding, and Jim thought he could hear the worry emanating from her words.

He instantly wanted to reassure her. “I know. I know there’s a lot of paperwork involved. But this may be the chance of a lifetime. They have amazing research facilities over there, some of the best in the world. Wouldn’t you be proud of me if they want me, Aunt Minnie?”

“Of course I would be proud of you, dear. I already am incredibly proud to be your aunt, no matter what you do.” Jim could see her before him right now, her soft, proud smile such a rare treat, but when she did smile, it lit up his life. “But I would feel better if you stayed within the United States. It would be so much… safer. For the both of us.”

“Would you be less concerned about my safety if I was testing the waters before leaping?” he wasn’t willing to give up just yet. Of course he could see her point, but he wouldn’t be all that far away. Whether he took the train or caught a flight that took five hours didn’t make much of a difference, did it?

“I can’t forbid you from going, but I would much rather you didn’t.”

“I’ll be back often, I promise,” Jim said, trying to appease her, his free hand nestling on the ends of his scarf. A plan was forming in his mind and he wasn’t sure his aunt wouldn’t try to talk him out of it. “I gotta go. Love you, bye.”

He pressed the End Call button without waiting for an answer. It wasn’t completely fair of him, but now that he had said it out loud, there was an unknown urgency in him to go.


	2. Chapter 2

Jim had neither packed an umbrella nor a raincoat, even though just about every cliché about Great Britain said that it was always raining there. And right as rain, when he landed at London Heathrow it was pouring.

At some point he had probably owned both an umbrella and a raincoat, he mused. Now that all his things were either locked away in storage or donated to charity, he couldn’t be sure, really. He had just packed up everything he could find within the apartment and cleared it all out. He had taken apart his lovely red IKEA kitchen, his shabby-chic vintage desk, his grubby locker-lookalike dresser… He had packed so many boxes full of his books – about twice as many as he packed clothes and stuff and knick-knacks in. He didn’t quite know if the real tragedy was that all his life fit into one storage locker, or that he wouldn’t have a place waiting for him when he went back there in a couple months.

It felt strange to be here, now. In the UK, where so many of his favourite things were from, and where it seemed to him that everything was possible.

As soon as Jim left the airport building to look for his transfer, he couldn’t see anything anymore, though. His glassed were instantly sprinkled with the fine drizzle the rain had turned into, making him wish for his contact lenses. Jim had thought it clever not to put them in for the flight, thus hopefully preventing his eyes from becoming too itchy. So his contacts were buried deep in his suitcase somewhere… He took off his glasses, dried them off on his parka as best he could.

Lasek had been an option that had crossed Jim’s mind more than once over the last few years; most of those times were whenever he had just taken out his contacts and rediscovered just how blind and helpless he was without them. He would always look around and strain to make out more than silhouettes and shadows of what he knew had to be his apartment, people out on the street, his own handwriting.

Now, too, he could make out a dark figure moving towards him. When he pushed his glasses back up his nose, Jim saw that it was an old man in an oilskin jacket, the hood pulled low over his face, and a large, shaggy black dog by his side.

The dog was the first to make eye contact; it immediately fell into a deep and menacing growl, baring its fangs at Jim, who flinched.

“Oh, don’t worry about old Pads here,” the old man said – in a wonderfully British accent, yet an unexpectedly soft-spoken voice. He patted the dog’s head and neck lovingly and it seemed to at least be quieting down. Jim still didn’t feel completely safe in the dog’s presence and so sneaked a glance at the imposing animal from time to time. “You’re Mister Potter, I assume?” The man raised his hand towards him.

Jim shook it. “Yeah, that’s me. Jim Potter, hi. Nice meeting you. So you’re my ride?”

The man nodded. Up close like this, Jim could see some ugly-looking scars crisscross his face. Whatever could cause such nasty wounds to leave scars like this, Jim probably didn’t want to know. Then again, he did.

“I was in the war.” The short explanation meant Jim had been caught staring at the scars, he guessed.

And felt his face flush with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s fine. Really.” The man gave him a small smile from under his hood. “Are you ready to go? I can’t promise anything, but when I left the cottage to come here, the weather there was still quite lovely.”

The cottage. Jim had instantly fallen in love with it. So much so that he had booked it even though it had gone a bit over the Airbnb limit he had set himself. He supposed that with his lease on the apartment having ended earlier than expected, he did have some extra cash to spare. Especially on a lovely little place like the one he would be calling his home for the next two months.

The small town it was in was off the beaten path of most tourists, so it had seemed like the perfect place to experience REAL English life. There were hardly more than a few stores, a small neighbourhood supermarket and several houses. Very green and lovely and rural. The cottage itself was a small, half-timbered house; its white walls framed by a wild and wonderful garden. It had spoken to him, to something inside him and he had just known that he needed to make his stay in England happen exactly at that cottage. He was excited to finally experience it all.

“That sounds great,” Jim said, nodded that he was ready to sprint to the man’s car. It couldn’t be far, could it?

And so Jim followed the man and his dog to a rusty old Volvo, put his suitcase and backpack in the trunk, then settled on the backseat next to the large dog, who was still eyeing him suspiciously from under damp fur – before simply shaking out most of the water, most of which Jim felt landed on him. Just great! And of course now the dog – Pads? – regarded him with large innocent eyes. Jim huffed, looked back in irritation for a long moment, then resolved to ignore it and instead concentrate on the old man.

Now that he had taken off the oilskin and turned to face Jim, he seemed a little worse for wear in general. The network of scars extended from his face down his neck and probably even further. Jim wondered who would do that to another human being, be it in the context of a war or not. And why. How much it must have hurt… The light brownish grey hair was a bit too long, the sleeves of his sweater too short, despite a rather haggard frame. And yet, his hazel eyes seemed kind and knowing as they met Jim’s and held his questioning gaze for an instant too long.

“I’m sorry. I just realized I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name is Lupin and I’ll be your landlord for the time of your stay here. Is there anything you would want to do or know before we get to the house?” And with that, Lupin turned back to the front, looking at Jim again through the rear-view mirror, and started the car to carefully guide it out of the parking lot and into traffic.

Jim looked at the back of Lupin’s head, then out the window where fences and hedges, houses and cars were passing by, all drenched in the gray of the British rain. “Well, there’s one thing. You mentioned a ghost in your description of the place?” It had sounded intriguing, to say the least. Jim found the idea of a ghost haunting his house exciting and charming.

So did Lupin, obviously. The fond smile was audible in his words. “Oh, yes, the ghost. Like every good British estate, the cottage has its own ghost haunting it. A young lady, beautiful and lonely. They say she found quite the cruel and untimely death in that very cottage. So sometimes you may hear her singing, or see a door open or close by itself.”

A slight shiver ran down Jim’s spine at the thought of actually experiencing things like this. How big were the chances? Or was it just a sales pitch for starry-eyed American tourists who were easily impressed and dying to get what they believed the most authentic British experience? Either way his curiosity was peaked. “Have you ever heard her?”

Lupin chuckled lightly in answer, sighed. Jim couldn’t quite make out if there was anything funny about his question – to his own ears, he had sounded genuinely curious and not in the least bit skeptical. “Yes, I have. Many times, actually. She was… Her songs can be heartbreaking, so do take good care of your heart, Mister Potter.”

The dog beside Jim barked loudly at that, first at Lupin, then at Jim.

“Oh, shut up, Pads,” the old man said good-naturedly.


	3. Chapter 3

No ghosts so far. The first few days of Jim’s stay in England had been dominated by sightseeing, trips to nearby castles and strolls into town. They had not been dominated by haunting melodies sung by tragic young lady ghosts as he had practically been promised. Maybe he should ask for his money back if she didn’t show, he mused while changing into his pyjamas for the night.

He had been a bit surprised at how easily he had felt at home in the quaint little cottage and how well he could pick his way through this small town already. He did have a good sense of orientation, yes, but back when he had first moved there New York had taken him forever to memorize – but maybe that had been because, coming from a more suburban if not rural area, he had not been used to the noise, the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple yet.

Here, things were a lot less hectic. The town was small, small enough so that everyone would still say hello to everyone else they met on the street. The locals had known about Jim staying for two months almost immediately; some had even started up conversations about the political and social climate with him. Of course he had sighed appropriately, had tried to make it all sound less bad, instead had asked questions about the English Premier League, which had probably earned him some brownie points with them. He had even gone to watch a soccer game at the pub last night and felt right at home there.

Or at least almost at home. Soccer was exciting to watch; he had used to play himself – but something he had not quite been able to put his finger on had been missing from the game. But maybe that was just because his cliché imagined British soccer games involved hooligans storming the field or something… It had still been a great way to spend the evening and an even better way to bond with people.

He had also discovered that he liked the English ales a lot, especially the more creamy variety where he could almost make out a buttery note.

It did make taking out his contacts a little more challenging, though. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Jim discovered that he was ever so slightly rocking back and forth and that his vision wouldn’t quite focus the way it should. When he finally got both contact lenses out, he had almost poked his left eye out and almost run against the door, which he could swear he had left open.

“Hello? Anyone?” he asked, just in case he was imagining things.

No answer.

Jim slipped on his glasses and quickly brushed his teeth before shuffling into bed and under the fluffy covers. Now that he was lying still, the room was shifting slightly. Alright, he was probably a little drunk and would have to relearn his limits with British ales, he wasn’t above admitting this.

But especially evenings here would probably get a little lonely if he didn’t do something about that. The question was, what. What could he do about those evenings alone in bed that felt a lot more lonely than any of the evenings spent alone in his apartment back in New York…

He should just sleep now. He was a little bit drunk and a little bit homesick. By daylight tomorrow things would look very different, he knew. And so he turned off his bedside lamp and closed his eyes, only now noticing how heavy his eyelids felt and how heavenly it felt to cuddle into his pillow and just… drift off to sleep…

“So, what about tomorrow night? Want to go out?” a beautiful young redhead said, giving him a coy smile and fluttering her long eyelashes at him.

He felt himself heave a sigh, but smile softly, lovingly at her. “Bathilda is notified? We’re all set and free to go?” There was hope in his voice, he noticed. She nodded in answer. His smile grew. “Then let’s. I’ll take you out and sweep you off your feet like you deserve. How long has it been?”

“I don’t know. Too long.” She laughed, then turned to get… something. “Oh, and James?” Stopping halfway to the door, she looked back to him over her shoulder. “I love you.”

That was when he woke.

It was the middle of the night. He blearily tried to focus, blinking, automatically felt around the nightstand for his glasses. When he finally found them and switched on the light, there was a long moment until he knew where he was. What was real. That it had all been a dream – strangely uneventful, strangely vivid.

Jim blinked again. He turned slightly to see the alarm clock read 3:17AM. The middle of the night, indeed. Why had he woken up so suddenly? What had woken him up?

That was when he heard it from downstairs. Steps on the creaking floorboards. A door falling shut. For one dreadful second, the thought of someone getting all the way upstairs to this bedroom and standing over him while he was blissfully sleeping… It sent a chill down his spine.

Heaving a sigh, he got up out of bed. Jim looked around for anything he could use as a weapon should someone still be here, in this house, without his consent. Which was just about anybody; Jim knew he was staying in the cottage by himself. Well, if Lupin was to be believed, he and the ghost were. Eventually, he just put his cellphone in his pyjama pocket and grabbed the old-fashioned alarm clock; he could probably bludgeon someone with it.

He left the lights outside his bedroom off, operating on the residual light reaching the rest of the house from there and his hearing. Mostly his hearing. Creeping down the narrow steps of the stairway one by one, Jim strained his ears. He was ready to pounce, even though he knew the chances of any kind of robber or burglar staying behind once he was awake was marginally slim.

There was some creaking above him. Probably the wooden beams. A bird’s lonely cry from outside. Jim’s suddenly thunderous breaths and heartbeat. Apart from that, nothing.

He ventured further. Still nothing, and Jim let his hand with the alarm-clock-turned-impromptu-weapon sink back to his side.

The lock on the front door was still intact and everything locked as it should. He checked. Twice. He also checked every room several times. They were all like they should be. There was no one here except Jim.

It was something. It had to have been a bad dream, nothing else. For about a minute, he debated with himself whether to just go back to bed. Or, since he was already downstairs, he could get himself something from the kitchen, to calm his frayed nerves a bit. Eventually, he set the clock on the kitchen table and went over to the fridge. Milk and honey would do, he decided, and went to pour some milk into a pot and heat up the stove.

When he finally sat at the kitchen table, his mug of warm milk and honey in his hands, Jim started to relax. The taste alone calmed and grounded him in reality again. Even when he saw the door move slightly, he didn’t think much of it. Maybe a draft? Or the ghost Lupin had been on about. Whatever it was, there was nobody here except him – and the ghost. Well, and a ghost couldn’t harm him; a ghost was something to write home about, an exciting story to tell his aunt once he was back.

Still he called, “Hello?”

No answer. Of course there was none.

“If it’s the tragic young lady ghost: Hi, the name’s Jim. I’ll be staying with you for the next couple months. I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone. Deal?”

Again, there was nothing.

Jim felt a bit ridiculous talking to the thin air, but he had made his point. He took his time sipping his milk, quickly rinsed his mug, then went to check the locks and windows again trudging back upstairs. He could feel how tired he was now that the fear of a break-in had subsided. So he crawled into bed, pulling the covers tight around him, and closed his eyes.

It wasn’t long before he could feel the gentle warmth of a hand caressing his side. His shoulders. His arms. His thigh. It felt wonderfully pleasant and familiar. She knew him like no one else did, and it felt like he knew her just as well. Did she love him? Maybe he did love her. The girl with the red hair and kind green eyes.

He stirred a bit, turned to his side to face her, to reach out for her and try to reciprocate. He could feel her slender curves underneath his trembling hand, the soft fabric of her favourite nightgown gathering at her hip. Could see her smile at him, that brilliant and loving smile she reserved only for him. He knew his smile was shy, asking a question he hadn’t fully formed into words in his head.

Instead of an answer she gently pushed him to lie back down again. So he did. And felt her lying on top of him, every inch of her touching every inch of him, only their night clothes a boundary to their melting into each other.

He closed his eyes, could feel her fingertips on the frame of his glasses, then gently pulling them off his nose. And he thought he could hear her folding them up and setting them down on the nightstand.

A momentary cold breeze made him cuddle her closer to him, place his hands carefully on her hips.

Her kiss was warm, scorching his insides. Every single move of her lips against his travelling directly down to his groin. It felt like she had been starving for his mouth against hers – but so had he, the sensation lighting up his nerve ends.

He could feel her hand slipping inside his pyjama shirt, wandering up his abdomen and torso, stopping right over his heart to just lay it there and listen to the steady rhythm with her fingertips. Yes, he was feeling more alive than he had been in a long time.

When their mouths broke apart for air, his lids fluttered. He wanted to see her. Didn’t want to talk, but still spoke because he wanted to commit every little bit of this to memory. “Who… who are you?”

This time when he woke, he could hear birdsong from outside. Slanted sunlight filtered in through the drawn curtains. He blinked against it, his hand coming up to shade his eyes.

He was breathing heavily. And his cock was uncomfortably hard.


	4. Chapter 4

By daylight, last night’s dream was just that. A dream. Or a series of dreams. Even his waking up in the middle of the night and looking for a break-in felt more like a dream than anything else. The sun was already high up in the sky, the birds singing, the bees buzzing and the distant hustle and bustle of the small town served as the perfect backdrop for this day.

Jim was in England, he was finally here, living his dreams (for a while). So he decided to celebrate with home-cooked breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, tomatoes – he wasn’t a very good cook, but he would manage. Except for making coffee – he was amazing at that and made a whole pot full of it.

How could he have really thought he had been visited by that ghost Lupin had told him about? It seemed so far-fetched, especially on a day like this. It had most probably been Jim’s subconscious wanting to see the ghost and thus he had dreamed about her. About red hair, because he knew he had a weakness for redheads. About the brightest emerald eyes he could remember, because he had loved Nancy’s green eyes so much, even if the real thing couldn’t hold a candle to the ones in his dream; few things probably ever could. It was a good thing one forgot more and more of the dream upon waking from it and going about one’s every-day life.

And so the more he tried to remember of last night the more details would slip his mind. He ate his eggs, which were okay, and bacon, which was burnt. He drank his coffee and felt like he had grounded himself firmly in reality again.

The kitchen door creaked and slowly swung closed. A laugh escaped Jim’s lips; just tonight he had seen burglars and murderers and ghosts in such a simple thing. Here and now, he knew it was probably an effect of the open windows.

When he was done with his breakfast, he rinsed the pan, plate and fork he had used. The mug he refilled with more coffee, then went to transfer the rest from the pot into his trusty thermos. When he had cleaned everything up, he got out his map of the region and looked at the clock.

Thanks to his jetlag, he had slept very long and half the day was over already. Jim still wanted to do some sightseeing around the area, he wanted to go out there and explore; and so he decided to pack his thermos and some snacks and go down to the bus stop at the end of the road to see where he could go.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

After the third night of dreaming about the bright redheaded woman with the lively green eyes, Jim decided to start a journal.

Where could he have seen her before to dream of her so many times in a row? University? The library? No. His neighbourhood? Maybe a regular in one of the stores he frequented? Nope. His Aunt Minnie’s? Not that either. Maybe somewhere around town? Definitely not. Jim knew he didn’t know anyone with those looks – he would most likely remember a girl like that!

So why, then, was she so very present in his dreams? And had there been dreams of her before coming here? Jim couldn’t be sure but as far as he knew, no, there had never before been any dreams about this beautiful and vivacious young woman. So was she tied to this town, to this place, to this cottage?

“So maybe it is you, tragic lady ghost, isn’t it?” he murmured to the empty room and softly smiled to himself. “I’m being visited by a ghost every night. But why won’t you tell me your story?”

In his dreams, they were together, he remembered. Jim didn’t know if their relationship was rather new, if they were childhood friends who had grown to be lovers, or if they might even be married. He never wondered when he was dreaming and so didn’t ask. He only knew that it felt natural to be with her. And even if none of the dreams had given him a boner like that first night, they had done very obviously couple-y things in those dreams: They had laughed together and her laugh had been the most wonderful thing he had ever heard. That morning, he had woken up with tears streaming down his face, which he couldn’t place for the life of him. They had sat on the sofa, their hands and legs intertwined. They had done mundane, every-day things but every action had spoken of the love they shared…

Of course Jim knew he longed for this level of familiarity and intimacy with someone – but he never would have imagined his subconscious to produce such a dream of a woman. This couldn’t be healthy! Any real woman could not keep up with this kind of dream, could they? Even if he saw her somewhere around town one day, she would not be the woman from his dreams, Jim knew.

What was he getting himself into?

~*~*~*~*~*~*

When the scenery in his dreams changed, he started noting down the locations from his day trips as well. Castles and manor houses and fairy forests and that wonderfully English countryside – it had to be where all of this was coming from: His subconscious was processing the days’ events.

He was sitting at the edge of the bed, rereading what he had jotted down in his dream journal the days before. Details he couldn’t remember now but which had still been vivid in his mind when he woke up; like that she was roaming corridors with him until they arrived at several sets of stairs that moved here and there; like that she had worn her long red-and-gold scarf when they had walked down a hill in the snow, hand in hand; like the chaste kiss in a round room up in the highest tower of a large castle; like that in those surroundings she seemed a lot younger.

What did it all mean? Was there any kind of hidden meaning behind his dreams other than him wanting to believe that this cottage’s ghost was a beautiful young woman who had only waited for him to… well, to do what exactly? Jim wasn’t going to stay. He wasn’t any kind of ghost hunter. He wouldn’t help her get revenge or free her from a curse of something. He was just Jim Potter from small-town New England, currently homeless.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered, fully aware that he would not receive an answer. Over the last days, he had addressed the ghost from time to time – without ever getting any kind of reply. So why would anything happen now? Why should anything be different? The simple answer was that the story of this cottage’s tragic lady ghost was a beautiful fairy-tale the landlord told every tourist. It was expected of English houses, after all.

Jim put the journal on the nightstand, slipped off his glasses to lay them on top of it, then slipped under the covers and turned off the lights.

**Author's Note:**

> I do have a complete outline for this story (James surviving the war due to some complex time-turner shenanigans) - yet, somewhere in the middle of it I lost all drive to write it. I still love the ideas I had for it, so I at least wanted to share what I have written so far. I would love to discuss this story with you, so do let me know your thoughts on it in the comments. :)


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